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Majority of late money bets is being placed on Brock Lesnar to win at UFC 121

By Zach Arnold | October 23, 2010

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TMZ is running with a headline titled ‘Brock Lesnar – Bearded Badass!’ So, how much is he making a fight? The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says Lesnar is making $5 million USD a fight with sponsorships included.

Yesterday, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran an article about ‘the Brock Lesnar effect’ and how college wrestlers see a future in MMA after their wrestling stint is done. The Yuma Sun has an article on Cain Velasquez and how one of his old wrestling coaches says that younger kids don’t see the connection between amateur wrestling and MMA. Furthermore, the article quotes some wrestlers who are now ‘training MMA’ instead of doing wrestling training. The San Jose Mercury News has a profile article on Velasquez that I would encourage you to read.

The majority of fighters think Cain will win at UFC 121, while a significantly healthy portion of fans (casual and hardcore) think that Lesnar will win. Mike Chiappetta asked me what I thought the percentage breakdown was for who MMA writers like in the fight and I said it was about 60/40 in favor of Lesnar. As you can see here for a sample, it’s in line with what I’ve seen elsewhere. As for the main odds on the card, Velasquez is a +130 underdog and Martin Kampmann a +180 dog despite Jake Shields having to make a sizable cut to make weight. Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated says Velasquez will be the champ in the future but that Lesnar will win the 121 match. Randy Couture says it’s a 50/50 fight on paper but that the odds tilt in favor of Velasquez the longer the fight goes. BetUS says that the late money is coming in on Lesnar. Speaking of BetUS, they now have a deal with Bloody Elbow. Fox Sports says that Lesnar ‘is easy money’ to win.

As for what Brock plans to do after the UFC 121 fight, win or lose he’s going hunting in Canada again.

On a side note, you notice how quiet Paul Heyman (by his standards) has been this week? Not doing the media rounds this time for Lesnar.

Bjorn Rebney says it’s up to Scott Coker to make the fight between Eddie Alvarez and Gilbert Melendez happen.

Topics: Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 24 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

24 Responses to “Majority of late money bets is being placed on Brock Lesnar to win at UFC 121”

  1. Brad Wharton says:

    I’d assumed Paul Heyman’s relative silence was down to him doing work for EA/Strikeforce for their MMA game.

  2. Steve4192 says:

    I think one of the most interesting things coming out of this fight is the massive divide between who the pro fighters think is going to win this fight versus who the public and the press think is going to win this fight. The overwhelming majority of fighters who have gone on record are picking Cain. The question is, do they know something we don’t, or are they picking against Lesnar because he is still perceived as an ‘outsider’ by much of the MMA fighter community?

    I can understand people picking Cain over Lesnar, but not at the overwhelming rate that we are seeing in the fighter community. I think there is still a lot of anti-Lesnar bias in the professional MMA community, and that many of them are every bit as blinded by their dislike of Lesnar as the Lesnar fanboys are blinded by their worship of him.

    • smoogy says:

      The average fighter does know something the average fan doesn’t: fighting.

      • 45 Huddle says:

        BE counted the Sherdog fighter predictions and it was 28 for cain and 25 for brock. That’s basically 50/50 which is the same as fans. And just because somebody fights doesn’t mean he has a good opinion. For every fitch or florian there are 5 rampages who are clueless about their own sports….

        • Steve4192 says:

          Yep

          That Sherdog list surprised me.

          Almost every fighter pick I had seen prior to that was favoring Cain. A 50-50 split is perfectly reasonable.

    • fd says:

      The pro-fighting community overwhelmingly picked Couture over Lesnar and Leben over Bisping. If there’s one thing pro’s picks have shown, it’s that being good at fighting doesn’t necessarily entail being good at picking fights.

      • IceMuncher says:

        To illustrate this, here’s some stats on Sherdog’s Pros Pick involving Lesnar:

        Lesnar:6
        Couture:28

        Lesnar:14
        Carwin:38

  3. Paradoxx says:

    “Majority of late money bets is being placed on Brock Lesnar “

    Thats cause everyone saw the weigh-in. Velasquez’s fighting weight is probably 230-235. He looked like a LHW up there.

    • Chief says:

      I feel it has more to do with casual betters not knowing who Velasquez is. Many of the peripheral fans Lesnar draws in don’t understand the threat that Cain poses — all they know is that there’s another victim lined up for Brock to annihilate. They bet late because, unlike for us more hardcore fans and the more astute gamblers out there, the event doesn’t enter their consciousnesses until shortly before it takes place.

  4. Kid Nate says:

    Zach, do you have a link to this one? “Yesterday, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune ran an article about ‘the Brock Lesnar effect’ and how college wrestlers see a future in MMA after their wrestling stint is done.” thanks

  5. Fred says:

    At my gym and every other gym I’ve visited, it’s a regular occurrence for a high school wrestler to come ambling in every month or so. Usually they try jiu-jitsu, find it too hard and weird, then start going all-out training boxing. Either way, it’s obvious that amateur wrestlers see the MMA link and are curious to find out the next step.

  6. Smithers says:

    AOL Fanhouse is live-streaming UFC 121

    http://www.mmafighting.com/2010/10/20/watch-ufc-121-live-online/

    So, are Fanhouse guys like Helwani and Chiapetta going to be raked over the coals for “being in bed with the UFC” the same way Yahoo writers were?

  7. Bryan says:

    Goddamn, that was DOMINATING!

  8. Jonathan says:

    I cannot believe that this is really what the UFC wanted, but at least we can say that we now have the first Mexican Heavyweight Champion of the World!

    From what I read, it was a real beat down. Does Brock retire or come back after this?

    • robthom says:

      Easy comeback IMO.
      He’s got the right attitude in his after fight interview.

      I dont know if he’ll get the belt back with all these killers in the way.
      But he’ll be kicking asses, top 5, and get another shot within a year, 2 at most.

      Thats kinda funny that you considered that.
      It never even crossed my mind.

    • Bryan says:

      I really don’t think Lesnar retires after this fight, but it’s still obvious he doesn’t like to get hit and it’s hard to train your chin, no matter how much you try. Not sure who he fights next.

  9. EJ says:

    Props to Cain looks like for once a guy not only lived up to all the hype but surpassed it, I thought it was going to be over quick once Brock took him down but that wasn’t the case.

    Looks like the UFC going all out on the first Mexican HW Champ stuff and the crowd tonight was proven to be the right move. As far as Brock he’s not going anywhere except another go around with Mir the heat from those guys will sell itself.

    Far as JDS goes he better work on those takedowns, because Cain ain’t going to want to slug it out with him and now he’s becoming a finisher that’s bad news for all HW’s.

  10. PizzaChef says:

    What about Ricco Rodriguez? He’s part Mexican…

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